In recent years there has been a wealth of Argentinian horror collections from writers such as Mariana Enríquez, Samanta Schweblin, Augustina Bazterrica, as well as the anthology Through the Night Like a Snake. Added to their ranks is Tomás Downey, author of the taut and frightening Diving Board, wonderfully translated by Sarah Moses. In many of these stories, set-up and resolution are mere sketches, shadows onto which to project the surreal drama of the characters’ predicaments. The short, spiky opener “The Cloud” sees a family sheltering indoors as a mysterious fog descends. In “Astronaut” a man floats on the ceiling, unable to come down. The abbreviated nature of the stories adds to their menace and breathless sense of vertigo; they are unsettling snapshots where the mundane dissolves into dread.
The abbreviated nature of the stories adds to their menace and breathless sense of vertigo; they are unsettling snapshots where the mundane dissolves into dread.
The title story is among the best. A father takes his daughter to a recreational swimming pool and watches as she vanishes mid-air while leaping off the diving board. Throughout the piece, an undercurrent of unease throbs throughout the banal machinations of their day leading up to the incident. Downey is a master of the opening and closing lines of a story. Take this example, from the beginning of “Sisters”: “Julia is carrying the kerosene and the rags, Camila the knife.” The closing line: “The fire gleams in her open eyes.”
Whether it’s the ghostly repetition of a woman learning her husband has died in “The Men Go to War” or a father dispassionately abusing his mute son in “Miguel’s Eyes”, Downey’s limpid and compulsive prose crystalizes the dread of these scenes. He even has a marvelous take on the vampire story which offers no closure: “He stopped in front of the bathroom’s closed door and felt a void in his stomach, a pit opening from his core that projected him into an undefined space.” Later: “He could even hear the rumour of her blood, coming and going through her veins along its endless path.”
The best uncanny fiction I have read knows how to make the familiar strange, to twist the ordinary into the extraordinary. Another strong entry is “Sensitive Skin,” about a woman whose haunting produces physical effects: “Whenever the apparition turned up, she felt vaguely unwell. This feeling coursed through her body or settled into the pit of her stomach. Her hands ached, her legs went weak, her skin became sensitive.” What binds these stories together is the sense that they are planted firmly in the modern world, and characters react with the incongruity you would expect: “She didn’t believe in witch doctors, but she didn’t believe in ghosts either.” In “The Place Where Birds Die” the repetition of the incantatory phrase “the place where birds die” bumps up against the hard realities of new motherhood. While many of the stories contain psychological realism and existential uncertainty, there is an outlier (though no less fascinating): “The Takis” is an unexpected first contact story. There is something sinister about the cartoon-like aliens and their mindless singing, and the reader is given glimpses into the disordered future. Downey is so skilled at world-building in just one or two lines: “At night, we tossed furniture and appliances off balconies to watch them shatter in the street.”
Though these are categorized as horror stories, they are elevated to the level of terror (racing heart, dry mouth, clammy hands). The reader is not spared, nor should we want to be.
Tomás Downey is a translator, screenwriter, and the author of Acá el tiempo es otra cosa, El lugar donde mueren los pájaros, Flores que se abren de noche, and López López. His stories have been translated into Italian and English, and have appeared in magazines such as The Offing and The Common, and in the anthology Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories. He was born in 1984 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he lives.
Sarah Moses is a writer and translator from Spanish and French. Her translations include Tender Is the Flesh, Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird, and The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, and Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz, which was longlisted for the International Booker Prize, among other awards. Her collection of short fiction, Strange Water, was published in 2024. Sarah lives in Buenos Aires and Toronto, where she’s from.
Publisher: Invisible Publishing (October 2, 2025)
Paperback 8″ x 5″ | 240 pages
ISBN: 9781778430732
Alex Platt is a lifelong reader living in Brampton with her two cats. She holds a BA in gender and women's studies from York University.
